Construction Job Costing
Tracking labor, materials, and subcontractor costs by project so you can see exactly where the money goes and which jobs are actually profitable. Every expense is assigned to the right job in QuickBooks Online.
How It Works
Every expense that touches a job gets assigned to that job. Labor hours, material purchases, subcontractor invoices, equipment rentals, permit fees. Nothing floats around in a general expense bucket where it gets lost. Each cost is categorized and tied to the specific project it belongs to in QuickBooks Online.
The result is a clear picture of what each job is actually costing you while it’s still in progress, not just after the dust settles. You can compare actual costs against your original estimate at any point during the project and catch problems before they eat into your margin.
Cost Tracking by Job
Cost Tracking by Job
Every transaction gets coded to the correct project. Materials from the supplier, the sub’s invoice, the dump fee, the porta-john rental. When you pull a report for a specific job, you see everything that went into it without digging through receipts or spreadsheets.
Budget vs. Actual Reporting
Budget vs. Actual Reporting
Your estimate said the job would cost a certain amount. The question is whether reality matches. We set up reporting so you can see where you stand against your bid at any point during the project. If material costs are running over, you’ll know before the job is done.
The Problem Without It
A lot of contractors know they’re busy. They have jobs lined up and money coming in. But when someone asks which jobs made money and which ones didn’t, the answer is usually a gut feeling. Without job-level cost tracking, your profit and loss statement tells you how the whole company is doing but says nothing about individual projects.
That blind spot is expensive. You might keep bidding a certain type of job thinking it’s profitable when it’s actually losing money every time. Or you might avoid raising prices because the overall numbers look fine, even though certain projects are dragging your margins down. You can’t fix what you can’t see.
Hidden Losses
Hidden Losses
A job can look profitable on paper based on the contract amount and still lose money once you account for all the change orders, extra trips, and materials that didn’t get billed back. Without tracking costs to the job, those losses hide inside your general expenses where nobody notices them.
Bidding in the Dark
Bidding in the Dark
If you don’t know what past jobs actually cost, your next bid is just a guess dressed up as a number. Accurate job cost data from completed projects gives you real numbers to base your estimates on. That’s the difference between winning profitable work and winning work that keeps you busy but broke.
What You Walk Away With
You get financial visibility at the project level. Every active job has a running total of costs. Every completed job has a final profitability number you can trust. When you sit down to bid the next project, you have real historical data to pull from instead of relying on memory or rough math.
Over time this changes how you run your business. You start seeing patterns in which types of jobs make the most money and which ones consistently run over. You make better decisions about what work to pursue, how to price it, and where to tighten up operations. The books become something you actually use, not just something you hand to your accountant once a year.
Profitability by Project
Profitability by Project
Pull up any job and see the full cost breakdown alongside the revenue. Know your gross profit on each project without guessing. Use that information to evaluate your pricing, your subs, your material suppliers, and the types of work that are worth your time.
Cleaner Books Overall
Cleaner Books Overall
When every expense is assigned to a job, your overall financial records are more organized and accurate. That helps at tax time, it helps if you need financing, and it helps your accountant do their job faster. Everything is where it should be because it was put there from the start.
Long Beach's Trusted Bookkeeping Partner
The Next Step:
A Quick Discovery Call
Tell us where things stand with your books. We'll listen, ask a few questions, and give you a clear quote to get it handled.
